A baronet's son today lost his latest appeal over the sale of the family's £2.5m ancestral home.

50-year-old business consultant Philip Howard had claimed his father, Sir John Howard-Lawson, had broken the terms of his grandfather's will so had no right to sell Corby Castle in Cumbria.

But three judges in the Court of Appeal dismissed the challenge by Mr Howard against a ruling by Mrs Justice Proudman in London a year ago and backed her interpretation of an "eccentric" clause in a 1930 will.

Giving her decision on what she described as a "very sad" case, the judge had said that Mr Howard wanted to recover what he saw as his rightful inheritance.

He claimed that his father, Sir John Howard-Lawson, forfeited his interest in January 1962 as he failed to comply with a "name and arms clause" in the 1930 will of his great-great-grandfather, which meant whoever inherited the estate had to adop the surname and arms of Howard.

Mr Howard claimed this was hidden from him by Sir John and past trustees and lawyers and that he only discovered the true position relatively recently when, with great difficulty, he managed to obtain access to trust files.

He said that if it had not been concealed from him, there would have been no need to enter into a 1993 individual voluntary arrangement and he would not have been declared bankrupt.

Sir John, 77, denied there was any forfeiture and said Mr Howard obtained a large part of the Corby Estate which he then mismanaged so that the estate - including Corby Castle which had been in the family since the 17th century - had to be sold.

He alleged that Mr Howard would take any steps to obtain the other half of the estate, despite some 50 years having passed since the alleged forfeiture.

Ruling that there was no forfeiture, the judge said the name and arms clause was included because Mr Howard's great-great-grandfather, who was also called Philip and died in 1934, had only one daughter, who married a man named Lawson, and he was concerned to ensure the continuance of the association of his family name and arms with his landed estate.

Her interpretation of the clause, which she described as "complex and tortuous in expression", was that it was sufficient to avoid the forfeiture provision for Sir John, within a year of becoming entitled to the estate, to "apply for and endeavour to obtain the Royal Licence or take such other steps as may be requisite to authorise the user and bearing of the said surname and arms".